Dawson's Field hijackings

The Dawson's Field hijackings occurred from 6 to 13 September 1970, when the Marxist-Leninist Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) militant group hijacked three New York City and one London-Bound jet airliners in a mass aircraft hijacking. On 6 September 1976, the PFLP hijacked TWA Flight 741 from Frankfurt, West Germany and Swissair Flight 100 from Zurich, Switzerland, forcing them to land at the former Royal Air Force airbase at Dawson's Field in Jordan. On the same day, PFLP member Leila Khaled and Nicaraguan revolutionary Patrick Arguello failed in their hijacking of El Al Flight 219 from Amsterdam, Netherlands, with Arguello being killed and Khaled being captured. The two other Palestinian guerrillas who had been meant to hijack Flight 219 instead hijacked Pan Am Flight 93 and flew it to Cairo, Egypt instead of Dawson's Field. On 9 September, a British plane, BOAC Flight 775, was hijacked after taking off from Bahrain, and the PFLP demanded Khaled's release. The 310 hostages were held in Jordan by the PFLP, which sought to draw attention to the plight of the Palestinian people. On 11 September, the PFLP released its non-Jewish hostages, keeping 56 Jewish and American hostages in custody. On 12 September, the PFLP used explosives to destroy the empty planes, anticipating a counterstrike, and the last hostages were released on 1 October 1970 after the British government agreed to exchange them for Khaled. The hijackings were the second mass hijacking of aircraft in history, after a 1950 escape from communist Czechoslovakia, and the hijackings were some of the reasons for the Jordanian government's anti-terrorist crackdown during "Black September".